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Peace out til December. Photo by Flickr user samantha celera (Creative Commons license).

I’m taking a break. Call it my fragility, call it righteous anger, call it a serious case of can’t-even. But I just realized a cranky, clueless, hateful, petulant orange man-child is the catalyst for perhaps the greatest anti-domestic violence advocacy campaign ever–and during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, no less.

And I should be happy, but I’m not.

My last post tells a lot of why.

Despite the stigma that still surrounds DV and rape culture, victims and survivors DO speak up. I speak up, and I’m not alone, which is both a comfort and a travesty. So why did it take a professional misogynist on a national presidential debate stage to call mainstream attention to these issues, to unite, motivate, and mobilize activist efforts? 

I’m glad the topics, the epidemic, and the people who have been hurt are getting this empathetic attention. I just wish we didn’t have to go through this particular election cycle to see it. It makes me tired, at the very least.

So I’m taking a break. From blogging and from Facebook (for real this time). I know who I’m voting for. It’s time for tunnel vision. I don’t want to be (much of) a presence online when Nov. 8 comes, no matter the outcome.

I’m not checking out of activism or writing or caring, though. This week, two representatives from the DV organization that helped me obtain my PFA took me to lunch and invited me to join the org’s board of directors. I accepted. I also attended a DVAM lunch talk hosted by the director of the Office for the Prevention of Interpersonal Violence at the college where I work, and will meet with her in the next few weeks to discuss ways I can help from my position at the college. And lastly, I will be writing a poem every day in November. Every single day. A good writer friend and I are taking on this challenge together (buddy system!), to hold each other accountable and keep each other motivated.

I will still read your posts. Bet your ass I will vote (#nastywomenvote). I will stay informed. And I will be a writer again.

I just need to back away from all this noise.

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on my posts. I’ll be back.

Peace out, yo.